Crash Course on Guitar Effects: The Essential Guide for All Guitarists

Get the most out of your effects with this ultimate beginner's guide! Jargon-free and packed with professional hints and tips, it covers: how effects pedals work; how to use distortion, chorus, compression, delay, reverb, wah-wah and other effects; how to combine effects; multi-effects units and how to use them; getting the most out of your gear; and more. The CD features over 50 demo tracks, sample settings and FX do's and don'ts and the book has tons of photos and diagrams.

You dont set goals.

Youre Taking Lessons From Someone Who Cant Teach

How many songs can you play a part of, but not the whole thing? You need to focus on one thing at a time!

Its important not to just play something as fast as possible, or as fast as you have heard some other guy play it on the radio. You need to take things slow and play slowly enough so you dont keep making mistakes.

You Dont Play Slowly Enough At First

If you desire to become a great guitarist, you have to want it badly enough to sacrifice other parts of your life to devote to practice.

You may have a friend who can play guitar, or some guy down the road used to give lessons 25 years ago but just because someone can play guitar, doesnt actually mean they have the skills to teach guitar.

You have limiting beliefs about your ability.

Practice just isnt as simple as you have been led to believe. Many people just get their guitar and run through some exercises, a song, or a guitar tab the same way they have done it hundreds of times before, and they just arent getting any benefit or improvement from doing that. So you need to know how to practice effectively.

You dont need to play guitar enough.

This doesnt mean you have to give up your social life and never take the guitar out of your hands until your Jimi Hendrix

You Try To Learn Things You Arent Ready For

Believe it or not, many people have hidden limiting beliefs which stop them from progressing into the guitarists they want to be.

Its important to have some kind of goal in your practice. How can you get anywhere without first knowing where youre going? By setting yourself targets to aim for in your practice, you will get their much faster.

Its important that you know youre capabilities. This isnt to say you shouldnt strive to improve, but you must remember to start at the beginning.

The Top 10 Reasons Why You Suck At Playing Guitar

You need to have some focus when you practice. You need to be aware of what youre trying to do, and not trying to learn too many things at once.

Many of the cheap starter packs for beginners just arent up to scratch, and cause many budding guitar players to give up in frustration without giving it a fair chance.

You dont need to break the bank by getting that $1000 guitar just yet, but you at least need a fairly decent guitar that will inspire you to pick it up and play it!

You Dont focus on one thing at a Time.

Even the greatest players had to start somewhere! There is no such thing as natural ability. Nobody was born playing guitar, they had to learn too. So dont be hard on yourself if you cant play as well as youd like just yet and dont let anyone stop you from trying.

You dont know how to practice.

Its okay to vary it from week to week if you like, but you have to commit to actually practicing regularly otherwise its going to take you much more time to improve.

The two things are actually very different. And if youre not learning from someone who knows how to teach, you could be causing yourself more problems than your solving by having lessons from this person.

If you really want to learn guitar then you shouldnt feel the need to put it off till later to make time for some television!

Do your friends/spouse/parents knock you and think youre wasting your time?
Dont let anyone put you off from doing something thats important to you.

You dont put enough time aside for practice.

But it does mean you need to set aside time to practice and commit to actually it.

You cant take any short-cuts without having to pay for it in the long-run.

You Dont Have A Good Guitar

Dont listen to anyones negativity!

If you want to get really good on guitar, then you need to be setting a side a set period of time each day or each week for practice.